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“Power,” Alexa said bluntly, and saw Adelina’s eyes flicker. “Wasn’t that what you always wanted and made sure you had? Power over the lives of everyone around you. The queen without a crown. But then even a queen is mortal and ages, until inevitably ‘La Reine est morte; Vive la Reine!’ Who did you think to leave your kingdom to, after all? One of those same persons you could always lead and manipulate so easily?”
Adelina suddenly laughed harshly. “You’re a bold hussy! My kingdom indeed! Was that meant as flattery? And if I had one—you think you should be my heir? Let me see these facsimiles you spoke of first, in case you might think I’ve grown trusting in my old age. And then, perhaps, we might go on being direct with each other.”
Waiting, even after the papers she had produced had been carefully read and handed back to her, Alexa finally heard the Dowager say with a shrug that admitted nothing, “Well, so you’ve decided to marry Charles? Isn’t that aiming too low in view of your ambitions for the future? With your fortune, after all...”
“There are also the fortune hunters that follow in droves. I know. And some of them have grander and older titles. But supposing I wanted—” Alexa cut herself off quickly, then continued, “not to allow anyone else control of those things that are already mine, such as my wealth and myself? I am engaged to Charley, and I care for him of course, but perhaps I should not rush into marriage too quickly.”
“Charles will be much easier to manage than some man like...like Embry, for instance, who will always have everything his way. As he did last night, I gather. Were the accommodations your aunt offers comfortable or merely convenient?”
“Both, I suppose—for Lord Embry!” Alexa said, and rose, smiling. “You know what you know and arrange, and I know what I know and could arrange for. I have found our discussion interesting as well as instructive, Grandmere, but I suppose I must not be so rude as to keep you too long.” She thought she did well, keeping both her smile and her voice light.
“Considerate. But since you are here already you might as well wait and accompany me downstairs, since it will look better for you in view of the gossip that must already be going the rounds. Better for Charles too, because if they see that I seem to have accepted you then they’ll tend to discount the rumors. I suppose you’ll be leaving for the country in a few days like everybody else?”
Clever Belle-Mere, Alexa thought when she found herself walking downstairs with the formidable Adelina. Always change the subject when it becomes unpleasant. But at least she was being affable for a change. As they reached the bottom of the stairway Alexa noticed Nicholas leaving the ballroom with Helen on his arm, and wondered why she suddenly felt so angry, particularly when everything was going so well.
Chapter 43
When he took an icy Helen outside to look at the stars with him, Nicholas had not imagined it would be easy to be bluntly honest with her, nor had he thought she would quickly thaw and then as quickly heat to the boiling point, instead of showing relief when he informed her that she should plan on breaking off their engagement as soon as she possibly could once they were all safely off to the country.
“No! I won’t have it as much as thought that you have jilted me! Why, you must have known that when you were constantly seen in my company everywhere you had already compromised me. And you are older than I am and much more experienced.” Helen had actually begun to weep real tears as she continued between sobs: “Like that...that Lady Travers, who must be quite as experienced as you are, I suppose, and you’re lucky that I at least have enough self-discipline not to interfere with...with that side of a man’s life! Have I ever acted jealous or questioned you? I’ve give you no reason to...to throw me aside so publicly! You cannot—you cannot—you cannot!”
“For God’s sake, be calm! Stop acting like a spoiled child, Helen. Admit I never made you any promises or told you any lies, and don’t ask me to either; just to save you from having hurt feelings. In any case, my dear, you’d do much better with a more malleable husband than I’d make; and I’m sure you can bring almost any man you wanted to the point of proposing if you turn the battery of your beauty on him.”
In the end he had stayed out longer with Helen than he had intended to, because she was afraid of going back in with a reddened nose; and by the time they did so, Alexa had already escaped.
Escaped, he had thought. Damn her, from what? The same sexual tension that seemed to overtake them both when they were in each other’s presence? For all he knew she might have the same feeling with every man she happened to be with at the time. Let Charles be the one to have to put up with her, since they were both hypocrites and deserved each other thoroughly.
“You will at least dance with me, won’t you? Or they’ll all think the very worst, I know they will.” Helen, for a change, was almost childishly human; and in the end Nicholas danced with her at least three times before he ordered his carriage brought around and drove himself to the establishment of Madame Olivier, who might or might not be Alexa’s true mother. Picking out two of her prettiest young “ladies,” he kept them in his apartments all night for his pleasure and theirs as well. He had decided that tomorrow he would go out and arrange to buy one of the discreet villas in St. John’s Wood, so that he could keep a regular mistress and have more privacy than his present apartments provided. The hell with Alexa! She was a clever little bitch who quickly made use of any advantage she could think of.
Nicholas caught a glimpse of her twice, out riding in Rotten Row, with Lord Deering, her fiancé, sticking as closely as a burr at her side; and then he heard that she had left town for the country earlier than usual, and that Lord Charles had gone too. He should, perhaps, have gone to find her at her house sometime and taken her as he had before, without too much serious argument; but perhaps this way was the best. And in the meantime London was getting foggy and quite chilly and he had begun to
think not only of the country with its clean air but of California and the warm sun and ripening grapes and the smell of cattle and horses and drying hides and hay and the ocean all mixed in together on a puff of warm breeze, and to wonder sourly what he was doing here with a title that really meant nothing to him, living the kind of empty life he’d always despised.
In the end, since he had held back from positively committing himself to any of the hunts or shooting parties he had been invited to, Nicholas was able to make his own plans for moving to the country for a month or two before he left for warmer climes. And so when Newbury pressed him to accompany him to a meeting of the Judge and Jury Society which was presided over by a gentleman who styled himself the Lord Chief Baron Nicholson, he agreed that it might prove interesting to attend—to hear the “cases” and view the usual poses plastiques and tableaux vivants featuring scantily clad or nude young women in various “classical” poses.
“I hope you will not be misled by the name of the premises,” the Marquess said when his carriage drew up before a gaslit sign advertising the Cider Cellars at Maiden Lane in Covent Garden. “They are quite well done up downstairs, and their cellars are actually well stocked with almost any kind of wine you may desire. It is really a very interesting kind of place, as you will discover, and quite unique, which is why I thought that you would enjoy a visit here before you leave London.”
If Newbury had not felt it necessary to go into detail, his twin brothers-in-law, Roger and Myles, were more than happy to do so, especially when they learned that the Viscount Embry had not visited the Cider Cellars before.
“I say old man, if we’d had any idea you’d never even heard of the Judge and Jury Society, we’d have suggested a visit ourselves a long time ago. Quite interesting sometimes, don’t you think so, Myles? Need to know the ropes, though. Myles and I will tell you if Newbury hasn’t already.”
“Last week it was Lord Truscott’s divorce case they tried in here, you know. All the dirty linen they can’t expose in the courts comes out here, and everything’s described in the plainest terms, of course.”
“Sometimes it’s only the latest scandal in town, and that’s usually more interesting than anything else. Apart from Nicholson, of course, all the other judges are usually played by judges—or actors in some cases. And you’ll find some of the country’s leading barristers participating, as well. Jury’s always a jury of the defendant’s peers, of course.”
“You forgot to tell him about being picked, Roger old boy! You see, they always pick out the jury and whoever is to play defendant at random—highest compliment. And one of the conditions of being able to view, is that you can’t refuse if you've picked, although of course no one would want to, would they?”
“I think I am beginning to fall in love with Venus. Do you see how lovely she is, Myles? Look at that thick chestnut hair. I’d take a wager it falls to below her waist when it’s undone.”
“Taken. I think it’ll do no more than brush her waist. But Diana—hair like gold threads, eh, old man? Graceful and elegant too. See how the bow she holds poised brings out some of her finer points? Think I’ll choose to worship at the fair Diana’s shrine tonight.”
They had progressed through the poses plastiques and were now viewing several tableaux vivants, each of which was the subject of a short lecture delivered by none other than the Lord Chief Baron Nicholson. Already bored, Nicholas was finding it difficult to hide his yawns as one prettily posed female figure followed another on the oval shaped stage that divided this one large room into two sections. But Diana the Huntress intrigued him against his will, and angrily he had to acknowledge why. Chaste Diana, goddess of the moon and of its female mysteries. Also known as Artemis, the horned goddess—with her priestesses who gave themselves once a year to any man who desired them.
“Ah, that’s a pretty Helen of Troy torn between her husband and her lover.” Thank God that was to be the last of the tableaux, Nicholas thought. He found himself wishing that he didn’t have to stay on for the second half of the evening, which would no doubt turn out to be just as boring as the first had been. Where had Newbury disappeared to? “Ah, I see some friends of mine,” he had said before he had excused himself. “I will find you afterward, Nicholas, and I’m sure that in the meantime Selby and Rowell will manage to entertain you.”
Selby and Rowell had hardly stopped talking since then, either engaged in their private and endless arguments or relating to him some of the unexpurgated details that had been revealed during some of these “trials.”
“If there’s enough time they usually have two—a divorce and a rape, perhaps. Or sometimes even some scandal that’ll never reach a courtroom. Remember Mrs. Pardoe? Colonel’s wife—pretty little thing with fire in her eye too. Ended tip being kept by some shopkeeper after going the rounds.”
